Survivor bee

In Crescent Beach, this week, the wildflowers are showing off. Not least, the bindweed; this year its flowers are bigger than I've seen them for a long time. And the winged hordes are stuffing themselves with pollen and nectar.

This bee was too busy to notice my camera a few inches away.

"Yummy!"

But wait! There's something odd about that bee. Something not quite right.

Missing something.

Her wings are half gone. One is a mere stump; the other a tattered shred, but longer. Besides, she's long gone bald. The thorax glistens as if it had been polished, and her furry, striped behind has been trimmed by a blind hairdresser.

The hair loss is probably due to age, but something, a bird probably, broke off those wings. I wonder how she managed to fly. Surely she didn't walk to the feeding grounds?

Finished with this flower.

Turning to go, she stood facing me, as if gathering strength for the next flight. The wing stubs are clearer here.

On the lip of the bindweed flower.

A brief rest, and then she flew away. Half a wing or none, she's got work to do! She's a survivor.

Here's one of her relatives, on a mallow, for comparison:

Lots of hair, complete wings.

The bees have four wings, but the pair on each side hook together, so that they look like one. On the first bee, I see no sign of those frilly underwings.

Water lovers

The water was high in the Fraser River a couple of weeks ago, with some flooding in spots. The Coquitlam River flows into it, just a few metres down river from Colony Farm, which is all low-lying flood plain. When the Fraser floods, the water backs up here.At the exit from the parking lot beside the Kwikwetlem First Nations reserve (IR#1), we found a barricade and sign at our usual trail entrance: Flooded: Do Not Enter. It didn't look flooded; the path, at least, was dry. And while we wondered, a woman came around the bend from the "flooded" area. We asked her about it. "It's fine," she said, adding that the sign should have been taken down.

So we ignored the sign and headed down the trail. After a few bends, there were some muddy spots. And when I stepped, instead, into the grass, I found inch-deep water underneath.

We went on. A few more curves, and the muddy patches became puddles that eventually covered the whole path, inch-deep over stinky mud. Not exactly fine; we were glad to come to the bridge up to the dikes.

High water on the Coquitlam. The square box is a pumphouse.

Standing above the river, we could see that the water was still high, but had been higher; there was a grey layer of scum about 2 feet deep over the stems of the shrubs. And jammed up against the pilings, was a collection of debris and displaced pondweed.

Potamogeton natans, floating-leaved pondweed. The leaves come in two forms; those long, stringy things are the non-floating ones.

Leaves, detritus, and flowers. The flowers are inconspicuous, greenish yellow, and clustered on an erect stalk.

These plants are normally found in standing water, as in sloughs or ponds. The flooding, minor as it was, must have flushed them out of the old drainage ditches.

Beside the ditches, red elderberry is ripe for the picking.

Birds love these seedy fruits. They are edible for humans, but only cooked, and not especially palatable, although they are reputed to make good jams and jellies. Long ago, they were a staple food for native peoples.

But birds do love them. Even chickens; when my daughter had a couple dozen, I used to harvest the berries for them, for the fun of seeing them chase madly all over the place, trying to steal each others' treats.

Orange elderberries. I have never seen these before.

Black hawthorn, the native hawthorn. It is found often on old farm sites, especially along streams.

At this time of year, it seems that the dominant colour for flowers is pink, from native hardhack (alongside the river in the top photo) and lathyrus to stunning invasives:

A lathryus, probably purple peavine.

The noxious Policeman's helmet, Impatiens glandulifera. Notice the glowing seed pods.

A pale pink and white variety.

This plant is an escapee from gardens, and has become a worrisome invader. It grows up to ten feet tall, along streams or riversides. (Along the trail at the edge of Burns Bog, they stand with their feet in the shallow creek.) They overshadow native plants, starving them of light and nutrition, and will eventually drive them out altogether.

And those gorgeous seed pods are explosive. When they are ripe, the merest touch will make them pop open and eject the seeds, all 800 of them, up to 20 feet away. The seeds will sprout in soil or even underwater, and can survive up to 2 years, until conditions are right. Ripped out stems will sprout if left on the ground.

Bindweed buds

These are probably the introduced Hedge bindweed, Convovulvus sepium, which likes moist areas, and climbs over other plants more than the native field bindweed.

Bindweed tying up a sheaf of grasses.

Bindweed varies from dazzling white to blush pink.

Under a stand of taller trees at the edge of the reserve, we found an interesting variegated maple.

Two-tone leaf, striped snail

No two alike.

The afternoon was hot, hot, hot. We were sunburned in spite of sunscreen and hats. But our feet were dry again by the time we got back to the car.

Sometimes I'm just plain lucky

Coming up from the White Rock beach, we stopped to take photos of the wildflowers along the railroad track. Among them were the beautiful white flowers of bindweed.

Too pretty for an aggressive weed.

My camera doesn't handle these bright whites as well as Laurie's does, so I decided to zoom into the shadowed throat of a flower, instead. And I'd forgotten my glasses in the car, so in the glaring sunlight, I could barely see the LCD screen; any macro photography would be sheer guesswork.

I didn't see these spots, or I would have chosen the next flower, thinking they were dust.

 So I didn't notice these until I got home and loaded the photos onto the computer:

 Red mites! I've never seen more than one at a time, before.

I'll be looking down the throat of every bindweed I see from now on.

Summer bouquet

Thanks to all of you who sent get-well wishes. They worked; I'm recovering.

I spent a lazy day sorting out my stored photos from this summer; how they do pile up! I picked out a few flowers that I liked, from assorted times and places.

Hedge bindweed, from beside our fence, in June.

Dave Ingram has a good post today, showing the difference between field and hedge bindweeds. I never knew how to disinguish them before.

Daisies and marigold, Beach Grove, July.

Teasels, just setting bloom. The Secret Garden, Beach Grove, July.

Miniature succulents at the entrance to the Secret Garden. Unidentified.

More miniatures from Brian's garden.

Pink clover, in the vacant lot across our street. July.

White clematis, on a fence at Cougar Creek Park. August.

Yellow rose, on an arbour in Beach Grove, August.

In the morning, I'll be driving out to Chilliwack for a baby shower. I'm hoping it doesn't rain too much; these days, it's been raining off and on all day. Up north, in Bella Coola, they're having beautiful, warm, sunny weather. That's BC; keeping the weatherpeople on their toes.